Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Growlery, 11/22/11

Nothing very visible has happened in the Growlery during the past week, just slowly tightening windows and getting it more homey. Today I added another chair so Christy from next door will have something better than an old pail to rest his poor old broken-down ass on. As you may recall, Christy is for all practical purposes a one-armed man. As a lad he blew most of his right hand off screwing around with a revolver, then three years ago he had an accident while climbing a tree to a deer stand. "Hell, I only do it once every 60 years." A one-armed old man climbing up a tree while carrying a loaded .50 caliber muzzleloader - what could possibly go wrong? When the butt hit the ground the gun discharged, the ball struck him in the right armpit, destroying his shoulder. After numerous failed surgeries at the Mayo Clinic, the arm just hangs there limp with a non-functioning hand attached. He does not have it removed because, as he puts it, "I've become attached to it over the years". I only digress to share this little nugget of misery and woe because he is presently in South Dakota on a pheasant hunting trip ... with a shotgun ... a regular unmodified shotgun ... a one-armed hunter armed with a shotgun and a history of gun related mishaps. And still he is invited on numerous hunting and fishing trips. "They only tolerate me because I cook." For the sake of his companions, let us hope he doesn't receive the honorary Richard B. Cheney Award for Marksmanship. Again.

Back to my world, I've added an additional lower shelf to the desk to hold my amp/CD player and I put a little knob on my cigar humidor, thereby turning it into a lidded drawer. The waste basket is the first prototype of the Hershberger baskets that Velo Orange used sell, from back when I was in the Amish basket business. ;-)

My old man made the ottoman. I have plans to eventually cover it with button-tucked cognac cowhide. He tended to cobble together junk furniture, but this one caught him in a brief moment of sobriety and it's quite sturdy and is just the right dimensions.

Oh, and the bookcase is a peach crate from my late father-in-law's general store. For years, along with cardboard boxes, it was part of my very sophisticated wine cellar. It ain't much, but I will die with it. All the miscellaneous on the desk top have personal back links too of course, or they wouldn't be up there. There are a lot more and if I ever get this thing done, I'll post a history of them all.

You can double-click this photo if you want to read the writing on the wall or check the titles of my reading material.

5 comments:

That suits me as is, mainly because of the wallpaper. I like the idea of furnishings that punctuate your life and that is what you have. As I have gotten older I find that my "punctuation" adds to my comfort level reminding me of the steps it took to get here.

Richard,Good thoughts. The plan is for 42" high pine bead-board wainscoting in the desk corner only. The remainder of the room may have a chair-rail at height of the bottom of the window 30" +/- with the lower portion painted a darker color to give the room better visual proportions. (Yes, I do realize it's just a shed.)